The private French company Le Train, which wants to open high-speed links in the west of France in 2025, announced on Monday that it had raised 8 million euros from new partners. Le Train welcomed the arrival of four new players in the project after the banks Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Crédit Agricole Charente-Périgord, the first to invest in the capital in May 2022. “This fundraising makes it possible to finance the information systems Le Train”, in particular reservation systems, “and the launch of the training plan for on-board, driving and commercial teams”, welcomed the company in a press release.
Le Train also announced the launch of a new funding round in the second half of 2023 to recruit and start pre-operating operations. The investors are Aquiti Gestion, a company that finances start-ups and SMEs in New Aquitaine, Charente Périgord Expension, a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole and NACO, an investment fund for the New Aquitaine region and local entrepreneurs. . Born in Charente in 2020, the company wants to “operate intra and interregional high-speed traffic starting with the Great West” to connect the metropolises of Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes and Tours, the large agglomerations of Poitiers, Angoulême and Angers and the cities coasts of La Rochelle and Arcachon. It announced in January the order of ten high-speed trains from the Spanish railway manufacturer Talgo, for around 300 million euros, with the objective of launching them on the rails in France in 2025.
